Group health insurance for roofing companies
Your crew is on a roof in July and your margins are set at bid. Here is what coverage actually costs a roofing business, what the 50-employee line means for you, and where owners lose money on the wrong plan design.
What roofing owners are actually deciding
Roofing has two features that make the benefits conversation different from an office business: a workforce that moves between jobs and companies, and a workers' compensation bill that already takes a visible bite out of every dollar of payroll. Owners see health insurance as the next line item in the same column.
It is not the same line item. Workers' compensation is required by Florida law for construction employers at one employee, and it pays only for work injuries. Health insurance is optional until you hit 50 full-time equivalents, and it pays for everything else — which is most of what actually happens to people.
The number that decides your obligations
50 full-time equivalent employees. Under it, you offer coverage because you want to keep crews. At or over it, you offer coverage because the federal penalty for not offering is $3,780 per full-time employee for 2027.
What it costs
Group coverage for a small trade business generally runs about $350 to $650 per employee per month for employee-only coverage, before you decide how much of that the company pays. Family tiers cost more and are usually funded partly by the employee.
Three things move your number more than the carrier you pick:
- The ages on your census. A crew averaging 28 prices very differently from one averaging 48. This is the single biggest factor in a small group rate.
- Plan design. A higher deductible lowers the premium and shifts cost to the person using care. For a young crew that rarely goes to the doctor, that trade often makes sense; for an older crew it usually does not.
- Funding type. Fully insured is simple and predictable. Level-funded asks health questions and can come in materially lower for a healthy crew, with a surplus refund if claims run low.
Run your own numbers with your real headcount before you talk to anyone.
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Get my group quoteThe 1099 question, honestly
Roofing runs on subcontracted labour more than almost any other trade, and the benefits conversation often ends there: “my guys are 1099, so this does not apply to me.”
Sometimes that is right. A true independent contractor is not your employee, does not count toward your 50, and cannot be on your group plan. But the classification is decided by how the work actually happens, not by what the paperwork says. If you set the schedule, supply the materials, direct the sequence of work and the person works only for you, an auditor may reach a different conclusion than your invoices do — and that same conclusion applies to workers' compensation, payroll taxes and your ACA headcount at once.
Two practical notes. First, if you want to help genuine subcontractors get covered without putting them on a group plan, point them at individual coverage; the trade-offs are here. Second, if a large share of your crew would fail a classification test, get that looked at by someone who does it for a living before you build a benefits plan on top of it.
Plan structures that fit a roofing business
| Structure | Fits when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Fully insured small group | You want predictable rates and no medical questions | Carrier participation rules — usually a share of eligible employees must enroll |
| Level-funded | Crew is young and generally healthy | Medical underwriting; rates can move at renewal if claims run high |
| ICHRA | Crew sizes swing, or you want a fixed monthly cost per class | 90-day notice, and employees buy their own individual plans |
| QSEHRA | Under 50 employees and you want to reimburse rather than sponsor | 2026 limits are $6,450 self-only and $13,100 family |
General product behaviour. Your carrier's rules and your plan documents govern.
Participation is where most small roofing groups stall. Florida law sets no participation percentage — that is a carrier underwriting rule — and there is a window each year, 15 November to 15 December, when carriers must accept a group that cannot meet it. How that window works.
Roofing health insurance: common questions
How much does health insurance cost a roofing company?
For a small roofing crew, group coverage generally runs in the same band as the rest of the trades, roughly $350 to $650 per employee per month for the employee's own coverage, before the employer decides how much of that to pay. Your actual rate is set by the ages of your crew, your ZIP code, the plan design you pick and, on a level-funded plan, the answers on the medical questionnaire. Roofing does not carry a separate 'high risk' health insurance rate the way it does in workers' compensation.
Does a roofing company have to offer health insurance?
Not until you have 50 full-time equivalent employees. Below that line there is no federal requirement and no penalty, and Florida has no state mandate of its own. At 50 or more full-time equivalents you become an Applicable Large Employer and must offer affordable, minimum-value coverage to at least 95% of full-time employees or face penalties of $3,780 per full-time employee for 2027 if you offer nothing and an employee gets a subsidised marketplace plan.
Do 1099 subcontractors count toward the 50-employee threshold?
Only if they are misclassified. A genuine independent contractor is not your employee for this purpose and cannot be covered on your group plan. The risk is that a lot of construction 'subs' would not survive scrutiny: if you set their hours, supply the tools and direct the work, a state or federal agency may treat them as employees, which changes your headcount, your workers' compensation exposure and your ACA obligations at the same time.
Can I cover the crew but not the office?
You can offer different coverage to different classes of employees as long as the classes are defined by bona fide job-based criteria rather than by health status — hourly versus salaried, field versus office, full-time versus part-time. What you cannot do is pick and choose individuals. An ICHRA makes class-based design cleaner, because you set a different monthly allowance per class.
What about seasonal crews?
Two separate questions. For counting toward 50 full-time equivalents, there is a seasonal worker exception: if your workforce only exceeds 50 for 120 days or fewer in a year because of seasonal workers, you are generally not an Applicable Large Employer. For who gets offered coverage, the test is hours — 30 or more hours a week, or 130 hours a month, measured over a period you choose in advance.
Is workers' compensation enough?
No, and in roofing this gets expensive. Workers' compensation responds to injuries arising out of the work. It does not pay for a heart attack at home, a cancer diagnosis, a kidney stone, or the blood pressure medication your foreman takes. In Florida the construction industry must carry workers' compensation at one or more employees, so roofers usually have it — and often assume it covers more than it does.
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